When most founders evangelize 5 a.m. wake-up calls, Ishan Jindal built his company on a radically different clock. The IIT Delhi graduate and Lickcious creator hits peak creativity only after the office empties out, starting his real workday around 9 p.m.
That contrarian rhythm recently earned credibility from one of India’s toughest investors. Earlier this year, Jindal appeared on Shark Tank India and walked away with Rs 50 lakh in backing from Anupam Mittal. The deal validated more than his snack brand: it endorsed a philosophy that judges output over optics.
Under Jindal’s schedule, mornings barely exist. He rises around 11:30 a.m. and typically arrives at the office between 12:30 and 1 p.m. The formal workday stretches until roughly 9 or 10:30 at night. Then comes his golden window. From that point until 3 or 4 a.m., uninterrupted concentration takes over.
The habit traces directly to his undergraduate years at IIT Delhi. Those post-midnight stretches on campus delivered a silence that daytime simply could not offer. Fewer people meant fewer interruptions, and that freedom sharpened his ability to produce.
Jindal carries that lesson into how he runs his company. He refuses to measure employees by login times or desk presence. Instead, performance metrics drive every evaluation. Physical attendance never becomes a bottleneck for getting work done.
That framework grants his team meaningful flexibility while holding everyone accountable to outcomes. As a result, the culture rewards what people actually deliver rather than when they deliver it. For an entrepreneur who finds clarity when others log off, the approach appears to be working.
